Many systems exist for tracking items such as packaged goods, shipping containers, warehouse bins and boxes, vehicles, and other items. Conventional tracking systems have their strengths and weaknesses. Automation of such systems is a continuing goal toward which some progress has been made, but there are many improvements to be made to existing tracking systems.
Additionally, various conventional tracking systems have used manned vehicles or automated vehicles for transporting and retrieving the tracked items. Both manned and automated transport vehicles (e.g., motorized pallet jacks, forklift trucks, buggies, and carts) have been used in factories, warehouses, and distribution centers to move tracked items. For example, previously developed shipping container systems have included attempts to attach marks, markers, bugs, radios, GPS equipment, and other devices to shipping containers. However, such systems are flawed in that reading or detecting devices for such markers are often blocked by other objects (e.g., stacked containers) between the container and the reading or detecting device, or for some reason are not accessible. Device incompatibilities also are common because there is no standardization of such devices.
Commodity goods (e.g., nuts, fruits, vegetables, etc.) are typically loosely tracked in lots in the storage and sorting process. Commodity goods are often warehoused in containers (e.g., agricultural bins) and these bins typically are not individually or precisely marked. Consequently, commodity goods from various sources can be intermingled as the storage containers are moved around a warehouse environment. Also, commodity goods are typically sorted by quality and other characteristics, resulting in sorting the containers of goods from different sources into a grouping or lot having a particular common characteristic or set of characteristics. As a result, the individual containers can easily lose their provenance, making it difficult to identify the source of the goods in the containers.
Even if such commodity containers are individually marked, warehousing operations generally do not bother with maintaining precise records and segregation of such containers due to the inefficiency and logistical difficulty of doing so. Once the individual containers are intermingled, the source information for the commodity goods therein is effectively lost. Commodity warehousing and sorting operations do not identify the source of the intermingled containers because it is highly labor intensive and inefficient.
Additionally, goods which are the subject of recalls due to manufacturing or design error or other defect are difficult to trace within a warehouse or other storage situation. Improved tracking systems for such goods are needed as well.
Further, current systems are not designed to track a particular commodity from its source, through intervening storage and sorting locations, all the way to the end user of the product. Such tracking would be useful to both a retailer and the consumer, as well as government agencies tasked with regulating trade of such goods. Agricultural goods can be subject to recalls for contamination and other reasons, and often the recall affects any and all of the goods coming from a supplier in a given date range, requiring all of the supplier's goods to be removed from the market. For example, if there is a bacterial contamination of a particular kind of fruit delivered from a supplier (e.g., a broker or distributor) who receives the fruit from multiple farms, without a system for reliably tracking and segregating the fruit sourced from various farms through the broker and to the final destination where the contamination is discovered, all such fruit that were supplied to the market through the broker or distributor would be recalled indiscriminately. This is a hugely inefficient process that results in massive waste and losses for the supplier and the farms. Systems that facilitate the tracking of commodity goods from the source through the sorting, warehousing, and packaging stages, and to the final wholesale or retail destinations are needed.
Therefore, improved, efficient, and reliable systems for tracking and retrieving individual containers or objects within a storage environment are needed. Such improved systems would facilitate tracking of goods with particularity from source to destination.